Falling into treasure guardian's ambush unintentionally is a beginner's mistake. Since Moonlit Black Cats are members of PC Research Club IRL, they should have at least have a little knowledge about traps and ambushes in RPG(unless it is their first time playing one). The Black Cats' leader seems to be only one who knew the basics of gaming otherwise they would have been annihilated long before they met Kirito. Well, I can't blame people for making mistakes, but only in this game, you pay for your mistake with your life.

My verdict for this episode: The story is still great but a little bit predictable.

Maybe in a few offline RPGs this is true, but in a vast majority of MMOs, there are very very few, if any, non-quest scripted traps like that. In all likelihood they probably legitimately were not expecting that to happen(because it doesn't).

Even in most other offline RPGs, it's usually just a single mimic chest that jumps at you and most certainly not a room full of two dozen enemies.

Traps and Ambushes are common in most RPGs(especially popular console titles) but rare in MMOs but it doesn't mean you have to be complacent about it especially when the game itself literally trying to kill you in every way possible. SAO has a trap detection skill you can learn which means that traps do exist in this game and yet they failed to notice it(except for Kirito). Black Cats may not be expecting a trap in the treasure box but it is their own inexperience and complacency that brought them to their ruin.

In MMO games, you have to take this old maxim to heart: If it is too good to be true, it probably is.

Falling into treasure guardian's ambush unintentionally is a beginner's mistake. Since Moonlit Black Cats are members of PC Research Club IRL, they should have at least have a little knowledge about traps and ambushes in RPG(unless it is their first time playing one). The Black Cats' leader seems to be only one who knew the basics of gaming otherwise they would have been annihilated long before they met Kirito. Well, I can't blame people for making mistakes, but only in this game, you pay for your mistake with your life.

My verdict for this episode: The story is still great but a little bit predictable.

Maybe in a few offline RPGs this is true, but in a vast majority of MMOs, there are very very few, if any, non-quest scripted traps like that. In all likelihood they probably legitimately were not expecting that to happen(because it doesn't).

Even in most other offline RPGs, it's usually just a single mimic chest that jumps at you and most certainly not a room full of two dozen enemies.

Traps and Ambushes are common in most RPGs(especially popular console titles) but rare in MMOs but it doesn't mean you have to be complacent about it especially when the game itself literally trying to kill you in every way possible. SAO has a trap detection skill you can learn which means that traps do exist in this game and yet they failed to notice it(except for Kirito). Black Cats may not be expecting a trap in the treasure box but it is their own inexperience and complacency that brought them to their ruin.

In MMO games, you have to take this old maxim to heart: If it is too good to be true, it probably is.

I will have to highly disagree with the bolded portion, as there isn't an MMO that I've played yet that doesn't clearly mark out the dangers of where you are and what you're facing, even Korean MMOs. You have to be completely oblivious to your surroundings in order for something to take you by surprise(sadly however, I've seen far too many players let that happen). I'll grant exception to boss fights, however. (No, ironic developer joke additions to the game like "super hidden easter egg bunny rabbit of death" don't count)

But yes, in a very basic self-preservation sense, they should have erred on the side of caution just because it was their lives they were toying with, and especially in a higher level dungeon than they were used to. Especially since they were clearly a "casual" guild and they plainly admitted that they weren't as skilled as the holy wintastic knights of whatever-it-was guild that were raiding the higher levels.

But in a practical sense, I highly doubt that many of them even understood the concept of traps and ambushes - without elaborating into what they actually did as a club, it can't be assumed that they were just sitting around playing games all day. (Sachi especially looks like the type that only tried it at a friend's nudging)

But, that's where mister super badass twice-everyone's-level, soloing-boss-mobs beater should have come in. C'mon, really? You're there teaching a guild of casuals how to survive in this game and you don't even go over basic out-of-combat survival tactics? Talk about killing them through inaction - he doesn't even say anything until they're already in the trap room. He had days to go over this stuff with them and make sure they had all of the basics of the game down.

Falling into treasure guardian's ambush unintentionally is a beginner's mistake. Since Moonlit Black Cats are members of PC Research Club IRL, they should have at least have a little knowledge about traps and ambushes in RPG(unless it is their first time playing one). The Black Cats' leader seems to be only one who knew the basics of gaming otherwise they would have been annihilated long before they met Kirito. Well, I can't blame people for making mistakes, but only in this game, you pay for your mistake with your life.

My verdict for this episode: The story is still great but a little bit predictable.

Maybe in a few offline RPGs this is true, but in a vast majority of MMOs, there are very very few, if any, non-quest scripted traps like that. In all likelihood they probably legitimately were not expecting that to happen(because it doesn't).

Even in most other offline RPGs, it's usually just a single mimic chest that jumps at you and most certainly not a room full of two dozen enemies.

Traps and Ambushes are common in most RPGs(especially popular console titles) but rare in MMOs but it doesn't mean you have to be complacent about it especially when the game itself literally trying to kill you in every way possible. SAO has a trap detection skill you can learn which means that traps do exist in this game and yet they failed to notice it(except for Kirito). Black Cats may not be expecting a trap in the treasure box but it is their own inexperience and complacency that brought them to their ruin.

In MMO games, you have to take this old maxim to heart: If it is too good to be true, it probably is.

I will have to highly disagree with the bolded portion, as there isn't an MMO that I've played yet that doesn't clearly mark out the dangers of where you are and what you're facing, even Korean MMOs. You have to be completely oblivious to your surroundings in order for something to take you by surprise(sadly however, I've seen far too many players let that happen). I'll grant exception to boss fights, however. (No, ironic developer joke additions to the game like "super hidden easter egg bunny rabbit of death" don't count)

But yes, in a very basic self-preservation sense, they should have erred on the side of caution just because it was their lives they were toying with, and especially in a higher level dungeon than they were used to. Especially since they were clearly a "casual" guild and they plainly admitted that they weren't as skilled as the holy wintastic knights of whatever-it-was guild that were raiding the higher levels.

But in a practical sense, I highly doubt that many of them even understood the concept of traps and ambushes - without elaborating into what they actually did as a club, it can't be assumed that they were just sitting around playing games all day. (Sachi especially looks like the type that only tried it at a friend's nudging)

But, that's where mister super badass twice-everyone's-level, soloing-boss-mobs beater should have come in. C'mon, really? You're there teaching a guild of casuals how to survive in this game and you don't even go over basic out-of-combat survival tactics? Talk about killing them through inaction - he doesn't even say anything until they're already in the trap room. He had days to go over this stuff with them and make sure they had all of the basics of the game down.

To quote myself from my previous post:

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

Kirito knew that the most important thing in the death game, SOA was "information". And Kirito had that "information". However, he hid it from everyone else, his level and his knowledge of the game. In the light novel, when they bothered to open the chest, Kirito had told them not to and only gave them the reason "It looked suspicious". However, he knew that it was a trap because he had a detection skill but couldn't tell them due to him hiding his level. He blamed himself of their deaths because of that. Even though, they had leveled up and gotten stronger, he did not reinforce their knowledge further on SOA. Because if he did, he wouldn't be able to explain why he had so much knowledge about the game and also didn't want to be disliked by everyone because he was a beta tester, hid his level etc. Also, apparently, it was considered "rude" for a high level to be farming under lower floors.
Yes. He had days to explain these things to them. But he didn't. And it was because he didn't that made him so devastated and full of regret. That was what made this event haunt him for so long. Because he didn't.

I will have to highly disagree with the bolded portion, as there isn't an MMO that I've played yet that doesn't clearly mark out the dangers of where you are and what you're facing, even Korean MMOs. You have to be completely oblivious to your surroundings in order for something to take you by surprise(sadly however, I've seen far too many players let that happen). I'll grant exception to boss fights, however. (No, ironic developer joke additions to the game like "super hidden easter egg bunny rabbit of death" don't count)

But yes, in a very basic self-preservation sense, they should have erred on the side of caution just because it was their lives they were toying with, and especially in a higher level dungeon than they were used to. Especially since they were clearly a "casual" guild and they plainly admitted that they weren't as skilled as the holy wintastic knights of whatever-it-was guild that were raiding the higher levels.

But in a practical sense, I highly doubt that many of them even understood the concept of traps and ambushes - without elaborating into what they actually did as a club, it can't be assumed that they were just sitting around playing games all day. (Sachi especially looks like the type that only tried it at a friend's nudging)

But, that's where mister super badass twice-everyone's-level, soloing-boss-mobs beater should have come in. C'mon, really? You're there teaching a guild of casuals how to survive in this game and you don't even go over basic out-of-combat survival tactics? Talk about killing them through inaction - he doesn't even say anything until they're already in the trap room. He had days to go over this stuff with them and make sure they had all of the basics of the game down.

To quote myself from my previous post:

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

Kirito knew that the most important thing in the death game, SOA was "information". And Kirito had that "information". However, he hid it from everyone else, his level and his knowledge of the game. In the light novel, when they bothered to open the chest, Kirito had told them not to and only gave them the reason "It looked suspicious". However, he knew that it was a trap because he had a detection skill but couldn't tell them due to him hiding his level. He blamed himself of their deaths because of that. Even though, they had leveled up and gotten stronger, he did not reinforce their knowledge further on SOA. Because if he did, he wouldn't be able to explain why he had so much knowledge about the game and also didn't want to be disliked by everyone because he was a beta tester, hid his level etc. Also, apparently, it was considered "rude" for a high level to be farming under lower floors.
Yes. He had days to explain these things to them. But he didn't. And it was because he didn't that made him so devastated and full of regret. That was what made this event haunt him for so long. Because he didn't.

I'll only vaguely accept light novel reasoning, as the fact that it did not happen in the anime means that it's not canon for the purposes of discussion about what actually happened in the anime.

But oh god what a needlessly convenient excuse. I swear this anime is just like Muv-Luv in that they can't see the forest for the trees over the characters' petty bickering.

"A higher level character is attempting to help us survive! Quick, flip him off!"

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

But no, I don't buy it. He could have pointed to that magical beta guidebook plot device that was in episode 2 and said he figured out the basics from there.

I will have to highly disagree with the bolded portion, as there isn't an MMO that I've played yet that doesn't clearly mark out the dangers of where you are and what you're facing, even Korean MMOs. You have to be completely oblivious to your surroundings in order for something to take you by surprise(sadly however, I've seen far too many players let that happen). I'll grant exception to boss fights, however. (No, ironic developer joke additions to the game like "super hidden easter egg bunny rabbit of death" don't count)

But yes, in a very basic self-preservation sense, they should have erred on the side of caution just because it was their lives they were toying with, and especially in a higher level dungeon than they were used to. Especially since they were clearly a "casual" guild and they plainly admitted that they weren't as skilled as the holy wintastic knights of whatever-it-was guild that were raiding the higher levels.

But in a practical sense, I highly doubt that many of them even understood the concept of traps and ambushes - without elaborating into what they actually did as a club, it can't be assumed that they were just sitting around playing games all day. (Sachi especially looks like the type that only tried it at a friend's nudging)

But, that's where mister super badass twice-everyone's-level, soloing-boss-mobs beater should have come in. C'mon, really? You're there teaching a guild of casuals how to survive in this game and you don't even go over basic out-of-combat survival tactics? Talk about killing them through inaction - he doesn't even say anything until they're already in the trap room. He had days to go over this stuff with them and make sure they had all of the basics of the game down.

To quote myself from my previous post:

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

Kirito knew that the most important thing in the death game, SOA was "information". And Kirito had that "information". However, he hid it from everyone else, his level and his knowledge of the game. In the light novel, when they bothered to open the chest, Kirito had told them not to and only gave them the reason "It looked suspicious". However, he knew that it was a trap because he had a detection skill but couldn't tell them due to him hiding his level. He blamed himself of their deaths because of that. Even though, they had leveled up and gotten stronger, he did not reinforce their knowledge further on SOA. Because if he did, he wouldn't be able to explain why he had so much knowledge about the game and also didn't want to be disliked by everyone because he was a beta tester, hid his level etc. Also, apparently, it was considered "rude" for a high level to be farming under lower floors.
Yes. He had days to explain these things to them. But he didn't. And it was because he didn't that made him so devastated and full of regret. That was what made this event haunt him for so long. Because he didn't.

I'll only vaguely accept light novel reasoning, as the fact that it did not happen in the anime means that it's not canon for the purposes of discussion about what actually happened in the anime.

But oh god what a needlessly convenient excuse. I swear this anime is just like Muv-Luv in that they can't see the forest for the trees over the characters' petty bickering.

"A higher level character is attempting to help us survive! Quick, flip him off!"

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

But no, I don't buy it. He could have pointed to that magical beta guidebook plot device that was in episode 2 and said he figured out the basics from there.

It is kind of silly, I know since the anime pretty much leaves out almost every explanation of the game mechanism. After reading the light novel and watching the anime, it's like I'm watching the summary of a story where nothing much is explained but only the "conclusion" of what happens to something or someone is being told. Every thought and emotion every character expresses can be narrated in the light novel but the anime can't do an endless stream of narration. So, it pretty much is up to the director and writers of the anime to be able to portray as much of these "thoughts and emotions" through facial expressions, atmosphere and music etc. which pretty much leaves so many holes in the story. Besides,

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

What we're seeing here are short stories that came out "after" the main story. In the main story, there wasn't as much emphasis on the bickering towards "Beaters" or whatever since pretty much everyone is high level. This "hatred" towards Beaters are pretty much just a side thing that doesn't really make much sense. Maybe the characters are jealous about Kirito's high level or something entirely random? I don't really know. However, it's like only those at the lower levels care so much about such titles, really. The main story never really focused on that aspect but on the story development about the progress of SAO, main character development and what happens to everybody and how it progresses to the end. I guess they're just rushing over some side stories to develop the character, "Kirito" in the anime without giving much attention to the other characters in that development.
Another thing, since SOA has been published in the web, then published as a novel and then an anime, there seems to be quite a lot of small inconsistencies throughout the story because of the change.
E.g. in the anime, Kirito says that he passed to Floor 8 during the beta test, while the novel says it was floor 10 and the web version was a different floor. After all these inconsistencies pile up, there's got to be plot holes here and there that doesn't seem to fit. Another example could be this:

WARNING: BIG SPOILER SO DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

Supposedly, the timeline of the Christmas event should be after Kirito should be using his unique swords from a certain someone but in episode 3, it seems like he didn't have them but I'm 100% sure the story of how he gets the swords is before the Christmas event which should be in the anime around episode 6,7. So, if the dates are still following the novel's dates, pretty sure that's going to be something wrong there.

Unrelated to this quote:
Also, I'm slightly raging since Episode 5's title listed in wikipedia is

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

A Murder Case in the Area

Quoting from someone else's post
"The author even singled that work out as the worst of the bunch in terms of fitting with the main story." And I feel the same way but they're still going to adapt this story set in chronological order in the anime.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

I don't know how they're going to do it without the prior knowledge of spoilers from later in the story, and when I say later, I mean the "ending".

Already watching this anime till the latest episode (episode 3 for the moment).

First, thumbps up...

2nd, I think that the episode 3 was a filler, isn't it? (or, did I missed any important conversation here? scrolling the 11 pages of discussions kinda burning my eyes to read all of them).

3rd, currently reading the light novel for SAO from the Baka-Tsuki. I can't online everytime, so I use the BakaReader from the Baka-Tsuki to read the chapters. Currently in Volume 1 chapter 5.

Still enjoying both - the light novel and the anime - waiting for more actions for the Anime

4th, the opening by LiSA, quite good for me. I keep playing it over and over again and I love the moment when the Kirito strike the big blue goat with his black sword and the moment when Asuna running towards the it... somehow, the movement of hers looks so damn too realistic.

Watched all 3 episodes and the anime is very very good - I wish there was more episodes and the time jumps were not as dramatic and they gave a bit more detail. All of this could be accomplished if it was given a good amount of episodes to tell the whole story and I suspect this one won't have enough but it's still a great anime.

and done.

Edit: never read anything (nor do I intend to) and just started watching the anime.

I do really hope that they will be a new anime that has up to 40 - 60 episodes, just like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. It will open the chances for producers, writers and animators to write more detailed and specific timeline of the story and open for multiple difficulties that we can enjoy for a long period, as long as the producer don't do the unnecessary episodes (such as the Detective Conan and his "shinigami" ability,or endless fighting like Bleach.. hey, I'm not banning these 2 anime, just a simple example. I also enjoyed watching these anime actually).

And I think they are planning to adapt it into one episode only, I could be mistaken.

Well chronological they cant take in all the side stories if they are planning to have a murder case in the area to be episode 5, considering it to be happening at floor 57, they must be skipping some side stories.. just funny how they chose the red nosed reindeer over other side stories way more important to the later development of the storyline.. well anyways lets see how the series progresses..

2nd, I think that the episode 3 was a filler, isn't it? (or, did I missed any important conversation here? scrolling the 11 pages of discussions kinda burning my eyes to read all of them).

episode 3 wasnt a filler.. the light novel is going a bit mixed with the chronology.. volume 1 is happening in Aincard the world of SAO and then Volume 2 is side stories going back in time, the same with volume 8.. like episode 2 in the amine which isnt in the main story but another side story which was released after the main volumes